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access
to
water
and
sanitation
for
all
hygiene but often lose out on wider decision-making, espe-
cially relating to finances which are most often controlled
by the men of the household. Moreover, men are usually
not as concerned about WASH-related issues as women. An
approach is therefore needed to convince men that WASH is
an issue for them too.
BRAC WASH places the inclusion and participation of
women at the centre of its decision-making processes. The
community is strongly encouraged to support women’s opin-
ions and concerns regarding the locations for latrines and
water points and take them into consideration.
Separate hygiene promotion sessions are carried out in the
community for men, women, adolescent boys, adolescent
girls and children. Moreover, WASH messages are tailored
and customised for these groups. Awareness of proper
menstrual hygiene management is raised among women
and adolescent girls, both in the community and at schools.
BRAC’s sanitary napkin production centre (one of its social
enterprises) has been supplying affordable, biodegradable
napkins since 1999, to meet the public health needs of poor
women and girls in rural areas. BRAC’s health volunteers
(shasthya shebikas) sell these sanitary napkins door to door,
and also supply them to school teachers so that students
can buy them at a minimum cost (approximately BDT5 or
US$0.06 per item) while at school.
Among the BRAC WASH-supported schools, 91% of those
in areas with eight years of intervention and 100% of those
in areas with three years of intervention had separate latrines
for girls provided by BRAC WASH (on a cost-sharing basis
with the school authority). With regard to the availability of
menstrual hygiene management facilities at these schools,
even though a good proportion of schools have disposal
facilities, progress still needs to be made.
The programme began to recognise that a gender-inclu-
sive approach should not suggest only women’s inclusion
and empowerment, but that men should be included too.
For this reason, action research on an effective method for
Double headed tubewell, an innovative transformation of a traditional deep tubewell by BRAC WASH in water-scarce areas of Bangladesh
Image: BRAC WASH
100
80
60
40
20
0
Improved
Basic
Sewer connections
Improved onsite
Wastewater treated
Disposed of in situ
Proportion of national population
Emptied and treated
Safely managed
SDG ladder
Open defecation
Unimproved
Limited
Basic
Safely managed
12
12
8
29
39
WASH world survey
Source:
https://washdata.org/monitoring/sanitation